Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Next week dog is arrested for owning real estate.

Local lemonstand gang is arrested for breaking the law!



My god the world is stupid.

It seems like the law that restricts structures away from the house is overly broad and badly written. But the way to resolve that is to rewrite the law, you don't just ignore because it happens to apply to feel good story this time.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
One of the "funnier" rules of my HOA is that I cannot fire off a firearm within my property or house.

So, no celebratory fire for 4th of July

I don't have a HOA, but I can't do this either. You cannot shoot in my county within 200 yards of a home without the owner's permission, or across any roadways.

Those are both probably reasonable rules.

Is it a legal requirement that you sign up to the HOA if you buy a house in an area otherwise covered by the HOA? Seems kind of... commie to me

And all the work maintaining parks, roads and so on... isn't that what the local council/government is for?

Or is this another thing where paying more to a private organisation is somehow a good thing, like healthcare?

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Is it a legal requirement that you sign up to the HOA if you buy a house in an area otherwise covered by the HOA? Seems kind of... commie to me

And all the work maintaining parks, roads and so on... isn't that what the local council/government is for?

I don't know about a "legal requirement" but it wouldnt surprise me in a development where HOA has already been established.


As for maintaining the parks, etc. this only applies to the private land that the HOA "controls" as in, the one individual housing development, since the city/county/state no longer owns the land.

Being A British Homeowner I keep seeing references to these HOA's in american popular culture and I find them to be both fascinating and kind of creepy.

We've got nothing like these in the UK and I can't imagine anything like them ever taking off. We tend to subscribe to the idea that 'an Englishman's home is his castle' and if any group wanted to try and enforce petty rules about the length of our grass or what colour walls could be painted and tried to make us pay for this privilege they would be be politely but firmly told to clear off.

Just to make it clear if you move to an area with a HOA is is compulsory to join it? What if you refuse to abide by it's rules, are they somehow legally enforceable?

From everything I've seen, it's yes to both.

 LuciusAR wrote:

Just to make it clear if you move to an area with a HOA is is compulsory to join it? What if you refuse to abide by it's rules, are they somehow legally enforceable?

I believe so, and there have been some fairly recent news stories about families having their homes foreclosed on by HOAs without homeowner consent. To be fair though, Im not sure about legal recourse over someone's lawn being a quarter inch too long, the one story that stands out in my mind was over a wife who's husband deployed in the military and she missed a bunch of HOA dues payments (which is also weird, because I know with my home loan, it's all tied together so I automatically pay the HOA, as long as I pay my mortgage)

 LuciusAR wrote:

Just to make it clear if you move to an area with a HOA is is compulsory to join it? What if you refuse to abide by it's rules, are they somehow legally enforceable?

Just speaking about my own HOA, but it's yes to both. Not sure how it works for every HOA out there but here is ours:

The whole square section is being developed by a single company. They purchased all the land in this section and are the ones building all the homes, dividing up all the lots, etc etc etc.

The company formed the HOA and filed the covenant and restrictions with the city, which means that the HOA rules are actually part of the property itself and together with the title and zoning regulations determine what you can and cannot do on the property.

When you purchase a home in the area and do a title search you find the current owners, the title, any liens against the property, any zoning restrictions, and any covenants. So you know about the HOA before you ever buy the property and you know what the rules are that you are expected to follow.

HOA can be found on the listing of the house for sale. Varies in prices. I've seen five a month to up to 50 a month. Realtor can pretty much can find out what the HOA provides for the home buyer

Sometimes reading a thread on here actually makes me kind of glad I'm Welsh.

All this talk and lamentation over what appears to be organisations of interfering busybodies complaining about the minuitae of your property that might upset the homogenous nature of your neighbourhood (but then again, I've always seen american/british society as a culture of 'he who stands out the most is he who stands out the least').

Over here (well, in my grim and dank part of Wales anyway) we just treat such issues the good-old fashioned way: we just do absolutely nothing about it, regardless of how offensive/unhygenic/dangerous/etc the state of your property is, all the while grumbling to our spouses and glowering menacingly out of the upstairs windows at any neighbours who offend our particular opinion of home and property maintenance (not when they are looking, of course, that would be impolite).

If you really annoy us, we might even write a platitudinous letter to a local newpaper, but that would have to be for something really unpleasant, (along the lines of 'shooting up heroin while simultaneously taking a crap on the bonnet of a car').

You Brit's can pretend all you want, but we all know what happens when your lawns gets too long and your flowers are not perky enough!

Which is really bizarre of Americans, when you think about it. We seem to have this odd thing where we pride ourselves on personal freedom and "castle doctrine" and stuff and then at the same moment we proudly shout "Yes,sir!" when corporations tell us what colors we can and can't paint our houses.

 d-usa wrote:
You Brit's can pretend all you want, but we all know what happens when your laws gets too long and your flowers are not perky enough!

Exalted.

 d-usa wrote:

 LuciusAR wrote:

Just to make it clear if you move to an area with a HOA is is compulsory to join it? What if you refuse to abide by it's rules, are they somehow legally enforceable?

Just speaking about my own HOA, but it's yes to both. Not sure how it works for every HOA out there but here is ours:

The whole square section is being developed by a single company. They purchased all the land in this section and are the ones building all the homes, dividing up all the lots, etc etc etc.

The company formed the HOA and filed the covenant and restrictions with the city, which means that the HOA rules are actually part of the property itself and together with the title and zoning regulations determine what you can and cannot do on the property.

When you purchase a home in the area and do a title search you find the current owners, the title, any liens against the property, any zoning restrictions, and any covenants. So you know about the HOA before you ever buy the property and you know what the rules are that you are expected to follow.

So you don't actually own anything, since apparently this company still regulates all that you can and cannot do with what is supposed to be your property?

To me, as a liberal commie European, this sounds incredibly weird... You guys all rail out about Federal Government interference about anything and everything, yet you let a privately owned corporation tell even how you can park your car in your own driveway and what pets you are and aren't allowed to have?!

PhantomViper wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 LuciusAR wrote:

Just to make it clear if you move to an area with a HOA is is compulsory to join it? What if you refuse to abide by it's rules, are they somehow legally enforceable?

Just speaking about my own HOA, but it's yes to both. Not sure how it works for every HOA out there but here is ours:

The whole square section is being developed by a single company. They purchased all the land in this section and are the ones building all the homes, dividing up all the lots, etc etc etc.

The company formed the HOA and filed the covenant and restrictions with the city, which means that the HOA rules are actually part of the property itself and together with the title and zoning regulations determine what you can and cannot do on the property.

When you purchase a home in the area and do a title search you find the current owners, the title, any liens against the property, any zoning restrictions, and any covenants. So you know about the HOA before you ever buy the property and you know what the rules are that you are expected to follow.

So you don't actually own anything, since apparently this company still regulates all that you can and cannot do with what is supposed to be your property?

You own your house. Nothing about a HOA says otherwise. It's just one more set of rules regarding what you can and cannot do with it. Same as zoning laws, same as city laws, same as fire department codes, same as...well same as any other rule.

To me, as a liberal commie European, this sounds incredibly weird... You guys all rail out about Federal Government interference about anything and everything, yet you let a privately owned corporation tell even how you can park your car in your own driveway and what pets you are and aren't allowed to have?!

At this point it's a HOA, not a privately owned corporation. We are all members of the HOA, we can all vote on stuff. All the property owners agreed to the rules and had them filed into the property deeds (at this point the developer owned all the lands, but if an existing neighborhood wanted to form an HOA it could do the same thing.

You know about this when you buy your house. If you don't like it buy a house somewhere else. If you buy a house in a city that doesn't allow chickens in your backyard then you either don't have chickens of buy a house in a city where chickens are allowed.

The whole "HOA's take your freedom away" saying is pretty dumb because you always have the freedom not to buy a house with an HOA in place.

So.. the issue was that you can't have things like this detached from the house? Can't they just attach it to their house, and problem solved?

 SilverMK2 wrote:
And all the work maintaining parks, roads and so on... isn't that what the local council/government is for?

Typically the HOA will administer facilities above and beyond what is normal in that council. For instance, I'm in a development with an artificial lake and we pay extra to have that maintained. We pay that extra money to council who can then spend that money only on the facilities in our area (when I worked for a local government I used to administer these trusts, and it was an annoying inconvenience to me and a drain on my time to be honest).

Having the estate itself collect the money and administer it seems a reasonable alternative.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

PhantomViper wrote:
So you don't actually own anything, since apparently this company still regulates all that you can and cannot do with what is supposed to be your property?

Of course you still own it. You're restricted by how fast you can drive your car, and what modifications you can make to it, but you still own the thing.

 d-usa wrote:
My only complaint about HOAs is when people bitch and moan about having to follow them. Crap like "evil HOA won't let Veteran put up a flag pole!" stories.

You know there is an HOA before you even buy the house. You can read all the rules before you even buy the house. You sign a document that you read all the rules and agree to them when you buy the house.

If you don't like it don't buy the fething house!

Ow wow D and I agree on something.

I'm just glad we don't have these HOAs in England (that I'm aware of... ). A man's home is his castle, and all that. The concept of a group of people, who don't represent the government in any capacity, regulating what I can do on my property is truly bizarre.

 d-usa wrote:
My only complaint about HOAs is when people bitch and moan about having to follow them. Crap like "evil HOA won't let Veteran put up a flag pole!" stories.

You know there is an HOA before you even buy the house. You can read all the rules before you even buy the house. You sign a document that you read all the rules and agree to them when you buy the house.

If you don't like it don't buy the fething house!

I didn't want to be the first one to say it, but I'm pretty onboard with this.

Putting it in a British frame, these HOA's seem to be some form of local council law that only apply to specific houses/zones/areas, with an appropriate level of additional 'council tax' to support the local services. So I can understand people saying, if you don't want to follow those local laws/rules, you shouldn't move there to begin with'.

At the same time though, these HOA's seem to prescribe invasive restrictions and behaviour far in excess of what any local council here in Britain would ever consider doing, hence the amazement. Council law applies throughout the borough, not just to certain zones/properties within it, and any council that started trying to say that specific houses should have specific colour doors would be ignored in short order, I would think. Likewise, insisting that all home renovations/alterations went through a council approved list of contractors would be seen as infringing extremely heavily on the freedom of the market, and the individuals freedom of choice.

I am amazed that such autocratic institutions exist in America, quite frankly.

 -Shrike- wrote:
I'm just glad we don't have these HOAs in England (that I'm aware of... ). A man's home is his castle, and all that.

Think of it this way... Say you bought a house for you and your wife, after being married, and in this same house for 10+ years, you've decided that the 2 kids, you, your wife and the family dog just no longer "fit" in that house properly, so you put it on the market for sale. Say you paid 90k for the house, 10 years ago. Naturally, you want a return on that investment, and with some repairs/renovations youve done/had done over the years, you think you should get 150k out of the house.

How pissed off would you be if you found out the BEST case value on your home was 80k, simply because the neighbor next door has 6 cars up on blocks, or at least that's what it was at last count before the grass overgrew the vehicles; And their windows are broken/boarded up, the house needed a new paint job about 15 years ago, and both your family and the local Law Enforcement have reason to suspect that they are cooking meth?


THAT is, in essence, what an HOA is for here in the US... Because, let's face it, there are some people who view their owning a home as something about as throw-away as a car, and so they don't take proper care of the building where they live.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ketara wrote:
Putting it in a British frame, these HOA's seem to be some form of local council law that only apply to specific houses/zones/areas, with an appropriate level of additional 'council tax' to support the local services. So I can understand people saying, if you don't want to follow those local laws/rules, you shouldn't move there to begin with'.

At the same time though, these HOA's seem to prescribe invasive restrictions and behaviour far in excess of what any local council here in Britain would ever consider doing, hence the amazement. Council law applies throughout the borough, not just to certain zones/properties within it, and any council that started trying to say that specific houses should have specific colour doors would be ignored in short order, I would think. Likewise, insisting that all home renovations/alterations went through a council approved list of contractors would be seen as infringing extremely heavily on the freedom of the market, and the individuals freedom of choice.

I am amazed that such autocratic institutions exist in America, quite frankly.

I can't speak for many other HOAs, but I agree that an HOA that told me "you can only have contractor X, Y, or Z do work on the exterior of your house" would seem overboard. Usually there are also certain avenues of approach that MUST be used when making a complaint or the like... For instance, my HOA has a "quiet hours" rule, which obviously dictates certain noise levels are maintained after a certain time of evening... This is completely different from Hotsauce's apparent "no gathering outside after dusk" rules... As such, if I'm having a party/BBQ or whatever, and it's after 10pm, the first course of action is for the offended neighbor to actually come over and request that we quiet down (I'd think that there are certain limits to this, as there are also city ordinances that must be followed as well), and if we don't or repeatedly do this behavior they can take it to the HOA board, and we get a letter in the mail, or a visit from from official within the Board.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

How pissed off would you be if you found out the BEST case value on your home was 80k, simply because the neighbor next door has 6 cars up on blocks, or at least that's what it was at last count before the grass overgrew the vehicles; And their windows are broken/boarded up, the house needed a new paint job about 15 years ago, and both your family and the local Law Enforcement have reason to suspect that they are cooking meth?

See over here, we regard sovereign property rights as generally outweighing considerations as to the value of the neighbours property six doors down. What colour I paint my door is my affair. What length I choose to have my grass at, and what plants I choose to grow in my garden are my affair. If I decide that I want a wildlife and hedgehog friendly garden, and cultivate a lot of fairly ugly shrubs with that in mind, that's my right as the occupier/owner of the property. The land valuation six doors down has nothing to do with me, and I'd find restrictions on my freedom to do my gardening with that in mind intolerable.

If I'm growing a diseased tree that threatens to infect the street, then the council can cut it down. If I have a plant growing into the street, the council are within their rights to request I trim it back to within the bounds of my property. But the second the council tried to pass a law telling me that everyone on my estate had to have uniform gardens or be fined, that would be regarded as a gross violation of personal ownership rights. I mean, jesus, you should see the outrage over people being told to leave their bins in accessible locations. Attempting to institute these HOA's over here would make those reactions look minimal in comparison.

I can't speak for many other HOAs, but I agree that an HOA that told me "you can only have contractor X, Y, or Z do work on the exterior of your house" would seem overboard. Usually there are also certain avenues of approach that MUST be used when making a complaint or the like... For instance, my HOA has a "quiet hours" rule, which obviously dictates certain noise levels are maintained after a certain time of evening... This is completely different from Hotsauce's apparent "no gathering outside after dusk" rules... As such, if I'm having a party/BBQ or whatever, and it's after 10pm, the first course of action is for the offended neighbor to actually come over and request that we quiet down (I'd think that there are certain limits to this, as there are also city ordinances that must be followed as well), and if we don't or repeatedly do this behavior they can take it to the HOA board, and we get a letter in the mail, or a visit from from official within the Board.

Again, here in Britain, you can call the police if the disturbance has reached a particular level, but there's no attempts to say, 'Everyone on this street must legally turn their music down by 10pm or get fined, because otherwise someone might lose a few thousand pounds on their house sale'.

When it comes to people smoking drugs on the street and piling garbage bags high, there are council laws in place to deal with those things. They're very specific offences, with very specific penalties, and the larger issues are all applied nationwide. I think the proof in the pudding as to the HOA's necessity quite frankly, is that we here in the UK manage to get along just fine without any such thing, and yet our house prices tend to go up rather than down. If you live on a street with crack dealers, having an HOA wouldn't get rid of them regardless, the police do that. If someone tried to lowball your house because someone three houses up has a differently coloured front door, or architecturally mismatched windows, they'd get laughed out of town here.

I don't personally see the attraction in uniformity to begin with. Houses and people aren't toy soldiers. Variation in vegetation, wildlife, and architecture is far more interesting and pleasing to the eye. And quite frankly, with the hodgepodge of houses in our country dating back anywhere from ten to three hundred years, any attempts to enforce uniformity would be doomed before it even began.

 Ketara wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

How pissed off would you be if you found out the BEST case value on your home was 80k, simply because the neighbor next door has 6 cars up on blocks, or at least that's what it was at last count before the grass overgrew the vehicles; And their windows are broken/boarded up, the house needed a new paint job about 15 years ago, and both your family and the local Law Enforcement have reason to suspect that they are cooking meth?

See over here, we regard sovereign property rights as generally outweighing considerations as to the value of the neighbours property six doors down. What colour I paint my door is my affair. What length I choose to have my grass at, and what plants I choose to grow in my garden are my affair. If I decide that I want a wildlife and hedgehog friendly garden, and cultivate a lot of fairly ugly shrubs with that in mind, that's my right as the occupier/owner of the property. The land valuation six doors down has nothing to do with me, and I'd find restrictions on my freedom to do my gardening with that in mind intolerable.

If I'm growing a diseased tree that threatens to infect the street, then the council can cut it down. If I have a plant growing into the street, the council are within their rights to request I trim it back to within the bounds of my property. But the second the council tried to pass a law telling me that everyone on my estate had to have uniform gardens or be fined, that would be regarded as a gross violation of personal ownership rights. I mean, jesus, you should see the outrage over people being told to leave their bins in accessible locations. Attempting to institute these HOA's over here would make those reactions look minimal in comparison.

I think a big part of it is just a culture thing, and the things that appear like they are usually handled by your council sound like they are the things that would also usually be handled by our city through regular code enforcement.

Not every neighborhood has a HOA (I would guess that in Oklahoma City neighborhoods with HOAs are probably the minority) and so it's not that "common" of a problem, and it really is not as much "they are telling me what to do" and more "we all agreed that this is what we are going to do". Many HOA's are pretty mild and basically consist of nothing more than "we collect some money, maintain the park and playground, get rid of the snow in the winter, and please don't let your property turn into a mini-ghetto, thanks". My HOA has a book of rules that is 125 pages thick, with a big junk of that just being definitions of the neighborhood, procedures for elections and meetings, when it expires, etc etc etc. The actual rules are not that extensive and really not that involved. We also have the "this is the color of the door and house, file a request with the review board if you want to change it" clause and quite a few other asthetic rules. But I don't feel like they are "forced" upon me since I knew that these are the rules were when I purchased the home.

Which again makes me think that it's just a cultural thing here. Deciding to buy a home with a HOA or not is no different than trying to decide which city you want to buy a home in based on the zoning restrictions. If you buy a home in Oklahoma City and then get pissed about your freedoms being taken away from you because you can't keep chickens in your backyard I don't have much sympathy for you when all the zoning rules for Oklahoma City are online for you to read before you ever buy your home. You know all the rules before you buy the house (HOA or not, zoning laws or not, fire department codes or not), you have the freedom to buy a home where you can do what you want.

Ohhh, Another fun thing happened. the HOA came in a cut ALL our rose bushes today when all we asked for was a single tree. They said "Well we where out there, so we decided to cut those to protect your neighbors kids"

 Ketara wrote:

See over here, we regard sovereign property rights as generally outweighing considerations as to the value of the neighbours property six doors down. What colour I paint my door is my affair. What length I choose to have my grass at, and what plants I choose to grow in my garden are my affair. If I decide that I want a wildlife and hedgehog friendly garden, and cultivate a lot of fairly ugly shrubs with that in mind, that's my right as the occupier/owner of the property. The land valuation six doors down has nothing to do with me, and I'd find restrictions on my freedom to do my gardening with that in mind intolerable.

Generally it's the same in the US, however the appearance of neighboring properties affects the overall value, at least from a marketing stand point (I mean really, if we wanted to ACTUALLY value a house's real value, you'd take the cost of materials and add in the cost of labor, and finally add in the cost of inspections... but that's not entirely how it works)

Again, using the "meth lab neighbor" from my previous example... If you were in the market for a house, would you buy one that was situated next to what appears to seriously be a drug den? If your answer is yes, then I would have some serious questions for you As it is, I personally feel that, when someone buys a house in the States with a pre-existing HOA, they go into it with the mindset of "the neighbors have the same values in the upkeep of their properties as I do" I mean, yeah, a man's house is his castle... but I think I'd rather face the French army in my castle if it's well maintained


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ohhh, Another fun thing happened. the HOA came in a cut ALL our rose bushes today when all we asked for was a single tree. They said "Well we where out there, so we decided to cut those to protect your neighbors kids"

I think you may have some legitimate beef with them, as well as possible legal actions available in this situation... Im no lawyer, and obviously dont know ALL the details, so I dont know for sure, but it would seem you should be able to do something here.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
It would be interesting to see how they consider dog houses, childrens swing sets, etc... all of those are "structures" not attached to the house.

That aside I would suggest that the "free library" is more a piece of furniture than a structure.

Bravo! I do not think I could had said anything better.

Lets add Sheds, Tents, Tree Houses, and patio bbq's to that as well.

 Vasarto wrote:


Bravo! I do not think I could had said anything better.

Lets add Sheds, Tents, Tree Houses, and patio bbq's to that as well.

In most places, it greatly depends on the square footage and height as to whether a structure would require a permit. I'm pretty sure it's been discussed previously ITT.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Vasarto wrote:


Bravo! I do not think I could had said anything better.

Lets add Sheds, Tents, Tree Houses, and patio bbq's to that as well.

In most places, it greatly depends on the square footage and height as to whether a structure would require a permit. I'm pretty sure it's been discussed previously ITT.

Some of the other articles that I have read seem to make a little bit more sense than the original article posted here.

According to those articles the lending library still violates city ordinances. But it doesn't violate them for being a "The city prohibits people from having structures on their property that are detached from the physical house". According to them it's a bit more specific and violates an ordinance against having structures in the front yard.

Which would make more sense and I don't think it would be uncommon for a city to have an ordinance against an outdoor kitchen, a jungle gym, a pool, etc in the front yard.

If that's the case I can sympathize a bit more with the city and the whole "if we make an exemption here then we are going to open a can of worms" argument.